nbc news correspondent morgan chesky is in little elm, texas, just north of the dallas. what are you seeing where you are? it doesn t look good behind you. reporter: yeah, chris, it has been a wild 24 hours for these people, and we saw these line of storms approach yesterday evening. tornado sirens were going off all over the dallas-fort worth area. what you re seeing behind me is the remnants of a grocery store. it was a combination of tornados and powerful winds that really did the brunt of the damage oaf the last 24 hours here, chris, and i can tell you that in texas, officials are now reporting five confirmed tornados. louisiana also reporting another tornado, but it was what this wind did in between that, as you can see here, caused a lot of the damage, more than enough to rip the roof right after covering multiple cars down below, and i have to tell you, chris, that right now this threat is far from over here.
cars getting crushed. two children were in that car when winds start getting stronger. listen to this. that s when the wind started picking up, this lady said, my babies are in the car. she wanted me to help or. i said, let s go. all of a sudden, the wind got so bad, i said no ma am. don t go out. that s your car underneath that sign. if we hadn t got out there, we would ve been hit by that sign. once the wind dies down, the two children inside the car were rescued, luckily, they were unharmed. this is the damage from another storm, in alabama. and some of the strongest winds hit texas with gusts of 80 miles per hour in the dallas-fort worth area. the faa ordered a ground stop for flights leaving to dallas, also to austin in san antonio. more than 180 flights departing texas were canceled on thursday. police these storms sent parts of buildings flying and knocked that power to more than 260,000 homes and businesses across
next on cnn. a new tornado watch has been issued for parts of louisiana . severe weather bad as the southern united states. cnn meteorologist jennifer gray is over the weather center, what is the latest. we have several tornado warnings going on across portions of oklahoma and east texas. first i want to mention the line of storms approaching the dallas-fort worth area, that airport underground stop and most likely will be for the next hour or so. these are severe thunderstorm warnings heading into the area. at any moment any of the storms could become tornado warnings so you should treat them as the same. the storms are very powerful and gusty winds up to 80 miles per hour and very large hail. once again the tornado warnings, the area in hot pink. this is a broader view of what s going on this evening. the storms are only going to intensify as we go through the next couple of hours. the threat will remain throughout the overnight hours and especially through tomorrow
the east. we ve seen some pictures of some homes with roofs torn off and trees uprooted. it s probably going to be a little bit of an ugly scene once the daylight hours come tomorrow morning. but we know of several homes damaged, and so far, knock on wood, haven t heard much in the way of injuries. but those reports are still coming in. how widespread, not just the tornado, but the severity? we re looking at a video now. it s pretty nasty. just how widespread is it? this range is from nebraska and kansas all the way into the dallas-fort worth area. so we re talking a fairly wide swath. about 1200 miles or so in length. wow. so it s extensive for the damage. luckily, the tornadoes are very a lot smaller than that. but most of the south plains in the u.s. have gotten pretty good wind and it s still glgoing on.
but i don t recommend it in the winter. thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us. we appreciate it. stay safe there. thank you, thank you for having us as well. contrast what s happening in the northeast with temperatures finally getting above freezing down in texas. that s critical because nearly a quarter million people there are still without electricity after ice storms brought down power lines all over the state. and it has been a nightmare on the roads. according to one official in the dallas-fort worth area, an overnight freeze there contributed to 50 crashes with injuries between 6:00 last night and 5:00 this morning. okay, ready for a competition? how donald trump is using familiar playbooks to try to knock his 2024 republican challengers out of the race before they jump in. plus, moving on, i ll talk to dnc chair jaime harrison about a major decision in the democratic party. they re about to make it. will they skip iowa to kick off